Monday never felt so good

With both ships and staff leaving, my days off have been rearranged this week. Today, instead of writing tomorrow's schedule, I'm off!

The weather is gorgeous again today, and days like today make it easy to, say, feel up for climbing a mountain. So, Mac and I climbed Mt. Roberts.




From the trail, there are gaps in the trees that give a view of the docks below and the rest of the channel, and the trail itself is pretty.

There is a trail by the tram called the Alpine trail where some carvings are highlighted.
For the rest of Monday, I'll be enjoying some football at the Island Pub, and get rested for tomorrow, the most stressful day of the week.

Saturday afternoon hike

Lauren, Kristen and I went hiking yesterday on Perseverance trail. It is a beautiful 6 mile hike that leads back into the Silverbow basin where gold mining was prevalent in the early 1900's.

It was a gorgeous sunny day with temperatures in the mid 60's. We had a great time enjoying the sights and smells, as the trees had already started turning their falls colors in some areas.


The water that comes out of this valley is from several snow packs around Mt. Juneau and Mt. Roberts. Just behind these peaks is the gigantic Juneau Ice Field. The water, when pooled, is one of the bluest blues one can see in nature. The only other place I've seen water this color is at theme parks, and their's is dyed!



We saw bear tracks and scat, but thankfully no black bears!



All this is a right out of downtown Juneau. Take a 10 minute walk down the end of 8th street and you are at the trail head in the basin. Another 20 minutes up the beginning of the trail and you are surrounded by mountains and history. It is all so accessible. It is all beautiful. It's one of my favorite things about Juneau.

Zip zip zip

Tressa and I went on the Canopy Zipline tour last week, and here are a few shots of our fun.

We were two people in a group of 6 that spent two hours zooming through the forrest around the historic Tredwell gold mine. 160 feet off the ground and the fastest zip being about 30 mph made it impossible to be stressed with work.



Tressa and I were silly and giggly the whole time - she was the perfect companion to have a treetop mini-adventure with.

Spirit party

The Carnival Spirit had its last stop in Juneau yesterday! One ship down, about 25 more to go! The ship hosted a party last night for the tour operators. For a few hours we could let go of some of the hostility involved with people selling more tickets than seats on the bus, and missed transfers, and angry phone conversations. And it gave us a reason to dress up a bit :)



These are the great dispatching crew I get to work with, as well as the dock reps that take the abuse of answering hundreds of questions from people who are lost on the dock.

18 days until the last ship day!

OPS meltdown

Today I felt like a circus sideshow. I knew going into a day with two Norweigen ships in the afternoon it would be crazy, but two pm ships plus 5 sick drivers made me, at one point, lay on the carpet and plug my ears. It was nonstop schedule changes and hole-filling from about 1130 to 1730 - and only then because the next dispatcher took over.

This is a job where a person is going full speed or dead. It feels like battle, and in the midst of it, nothing matters except the next transfer I need to cover, or finding a new bus for the one that just broke down. What am I supposed to do when there are no drivers and no buses?

But now, all the hard work I put in yesterday writing the schedule, and the work today into making it work, is over. Hundreds of people went on tours in Juneau and it all went off in a way that made them think they were the only person we had to think about - at least that's how I hope they felt. And it will all happen again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and all next year.

I'm glad I only have to make it through three more weeks.

A little Juneau Flare

Remember the post from last summer where I tried to explain how Juneauites love their xtratuffs? When I was doing laundry yesterday, the bulletin board at the laundromat had this poster:

Isn't that great! I thought it the perfect poster for the event and the community, a little funny and it catches ones eye.

On my walk with Mac today, I saw another Juneau flare that differs from the lower 48: instead of having broken cars in the yard, they have broken boats! With no roads leading out of the town, I guess it makes sense.


And for the rest of our walk, we went down to work for a quick chat with Lauren, then went to Cope park, which is right out of downtown.





Isn't that wonderful!? The trail meets up with the Perseverance trail, but we didn't continue for those 6 miles. We needed to go home. I felt a little discomfort when we were hiking, but it wasn't enough to make me stop and take my shoe off. Turns out I popped one side of my toe nail off. Yikes!

Lola and Ariel =

I've got wheels! Now that the rain has settled in, I found it an incredible stroke off luck that Lauren's scooter became available for rent for the last month I'm here. Her cute blue scooter is named Lola, and I got to meet her last summer when Lauren first got her. I was hoping to rent her when I first showed up, but a driver who is up for the summer had beat me to it. But starting today, she's all mine!

I can layer on my rain gear and cruise through the weather to get home a bit faster. With the bubble gum helmet and the goggles, I look a bit ridiculous, but who cares! I love it!